Author Pat Cadigan has announced that she has been diagnosed with cancer. Cadigan notes that her diagnoses is early and her prognosis is good, with her doctor saying that once the cancer is excised, she should make a full recovery. Cadigan, the author of the novels Synners and Cellular, won the Locus Award for Best Novelette for “The Girl-Thing Who Went Out for Sushi” the weekend after she made her announcement.

Author Richard Matheson (b.1926) died on June 23. Matheson was the author of multiple seminal works in science fiction, fantasy, and horror, including I Am Legend, turned into the films The Last Man on Earth, The Omega Man, and I Am Legend, What Dreams May Come, turned into a film of the same title, Bid Time Return, made into the film Somewhere in Time, and The Shrinking Man, also turned into a film. He wrote several episodes of The Twilight Zone, including the classic “Nightmare at 20,000 Feet.” Matheson received Lifetime Achievement Awards from both the World Fantasy Con and the Horror Writers of America, and in 2010 he was inducted into the Science Fiction Hall of Fame. Matheson was a Worldcon Guest of Honor in 1958 at Solacon.

A walk in memory of Iain M. Banks is scheduled for June 29. The walk will take place in London and will follow the chapter titles used by Banks in the Graham Park portion of Banks’s second novel, Walking on Glass. Participants will meet up at the corner of Southampton Row and Theobald’s Road at 1:00 PM on June 29, the day after the thirtieth anniversary of the walk that occurs in the book.

Tacoma (WA) Park Commissioner Erik Hanberg and Landmark Commissioner Daniel Rahe have started a campaign to name a new park being built in Tacoma for science fiction author Frank Herbert. The park is being built on a plot of land where fresh dirt is being laid to cover smelter slag. Herbert lived in Tacoma in the 1950s and the ecological damage done by the Asarco Smelter informed his ecological themes in Dune.

Actor James Gandolfini (b.1956) died on June 19 in Italy. Best known for his role as mobster Tony Soprano, he also appeared in the films Where the Wild Things Are, Shock! Shock! Shock!, and Perdita Durango.

Author Parke Godwin (b.1929) died on June 19 after a lengthy illness. Godwin won the World Fantasy Award for his story “The Fire When It Comes.” Godwin wrote a three volume Arthurian saga set in the fifth century, beginning with Firelord. A decade later, he began a three volume Robin Hood series starting with Sherwood. His two book series beginning with Waiting for the Galactic Bus was a satire on American culture. He began publishing fiction in 1977 with the story “Unsigned Original” and a year later published the novel Masters of Solitude with Marvin Kaye. His final two novels were published under the pseudonym Kate Hawks.

Journalist and publisher Kim Thompson (b.1956) died on June 19. Thompson began reading comics as a child in Denmark and his letters began to fill the Marvel letter columns in the early 1970s. Thompson published articles in comic fanzines prior to arriving in the US in 1977, when he became friends with Gary Groth and began working at Fantagraphics. He took over the ownership of The Comics Journal in 1978. From 1982 through 1992, Thompson edited Amazing Heroes and helped champion the publication of European comics in the US.